Category Archives: Press Freedom

Those of us back in the US, covering whatever we cover, do so almost always under the cover of law. We may loose our jobs, or have an advertiser pull his run, but our lives are safe and we will work — safely — another day.

A rant on Wednesday night by CNN’s Anderson Cooper may have forced Amazon’s hand — getting the book peddler to back down on its anti-censorship policy by removing from sale the e-book “Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure.” Last night, Cooper continue his assault on Amazon, demanding that it stop selling a Cooper-drawn list of additional pedophilia-related books (including another book by the Guide’s author that Cooper said had similar content).

Cooper’s segment tries to dramatize, Michael Moore-style, his program’s attempts to extract from Amazon a comment about the company’s materials acceptance policies — even sending CNN’s Seattle reporter to camp out for two hours in the lobby of Amazon headquarters awaiting an interview that never came.

Speeding up his pace and changing to a somewhat cavalier tone, Cooper zeroes in on the free-speech component of the Amazon question:

Originally, Amazon said they don’t want to censor — and we can all understand that: Freedom of speech is vital in this country and I mean who wants some company deciding what we can and cannot read. However, Amazon does censor some things.

He said Amazon policies found on its Website states that “pornography, X-rated moves, home porn, hard-core material that depict graphic sexual acts, and amateur porn and not permitted” and that offensive material would not be published.

“What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect,” Amazon’s online statement continues. “This includes items such as crime-scene videos, videos of cruelty to animals, and extremely disturbing materials.

Among the Amazon-sold books under attack last night by Cooper is one that makes this claim:

Children exposed to premature sexual experiences with adults frequently turn out to be distinguished and unusually charming and attractive in their outward personalities.

In a separate segment last night, Cooper was joined by John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. Walsh is a longtime anti-crime crusader with a special focus on missing and abused children; his own child was abducted and murdered.

In the face of enormous pressure, Amazon.com appeared to reverse itself early this morning and pulled a how-to guide to pedophilia from its Kindle e-book store. There was no official word from Amazon at this posting, but the book’s sales page had been removed. The pressure on Amazon to back down on its unequivocal free speech stance was especially acute in view of its announced purchase last week of Diapers.com for $545 million.

Amazon.com stood its ground tonight, with boycott fever spreading through the blogosphere as sales were soaring for a Kindle e-book on how to be a pedophile.

Amazon responded to the uproar with a written statement:

Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.

“The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure,” a $4.79 self-published Kindle download, sold at a quickening pace throughout the evening. By midnight, sales had jumped232,264 percent for the day, closing at number 65 on Amazon’s list of all-time best-selling e-books (President Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” was at number 284).

The screed’s author, 47-year-old Phillip Greaves, told The Smoking Gun that when TechCrunch first wrote about his book and attacked Amazon on Wednesday afternoon, he had only sold one copy — and the book stood at number 158,221 on the all-time hit list.

“Even as Mommy bloggers, tech bloggers and Twitter users call for an Amazon boycott over the title [it] is selling like it was just announced as an Oprah Book Club selection,” Gawker reported.

“People want to know what the fuss is about. (Or a surprisingly large portion of Kindle owners are pedophiles.)”

Gawker assures that the book, subtitled “A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct,” “will not convince a single regular person to become a child predator. Nor does it include a pull-out map of secret shops where already-existing pedophiles can buy underage sex-slaves or anything.”

The Smoking Gun tracked Greaves down at his Colorado home and posted an interview in which he said he was first introduced to sex at age seven by a 10-year-old girl, and that he was involuntarily hospitalized about three years ago when he suffered a “mental collapse.”

Asked if he had engaged in sexual acts with children as an adult, Greaves first answered “could have,” before stating flatly that he had not engaged in such illegal conduct.

This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught. [sic]

Further comment from Amazon was not forthcoming during the evening.

Attached to the book’s page on Amazon.com are (as of midnight) approximately 2,500 comments — almost all of them negative. The lead comment, by “onegoldplanner,” states:

This is my SECOND review for this book … my first one was deleted by Amazon. I have contacted NUMEROUS news agencies, as well as the FBI. I have contacted Oprah, John Walsh and Diane sawyer. I will be on this until it is taken down. And As a customer of Amazon I will no longer be one, as soon as this is taken down I will delete my account. And I am going to make sure NONE of my family and friends will buy from you either! SHAME ON YOU for listing SUCH FILTH!!

About Ed Weintrob

My speciality: Helping Old Media folk transition to New Media and Social Media. I created The Brooklyn Paper (NYC's first successful free-distribution newspaper) and secured its brand online before selling it to division of NewsCorp in 2009. Call me at 718-908-5555 or email Ed@ConeyMedia.com.